Skull and mandible. On Joseph Beuys' "ancient sled." Medical art history observation

Abstract

Few people are aware that Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), one of the most important artists at the end of the twentieth century, studied various aspects of the human skull. Beuys used teeth (especially molars), antlers, and horns as organically differentiated formations of solid substances of the viscerocranium, associating them in a very visual way with the "streaming circulation" principle. In addition, in his early drawings, in particular, Beuys replaced the lower jaw with a sledge. The artist has thus created interesting and strange constructions concerned with the structure of the jaw and the craniovertebral transition. Certain characteristic structural elements of sledges show a remarkable formal analogy to the ramus of mandible. The base of the body of mandible becomes a sliding surface, the iron runners of the sledge. Replacing the lower jaw with a sledge raises questions concerning movement and the effect of energy on the skull and on the earth. The artist's understanding of anatomy goes for beyond than that of normal medicine. It is formed by his thinking, his energy plan, and by his own theory of metamorphosis. With his skull and Urschlitten motif, Beuys makes us aware of the transitory layers of consciousness between life and death. "Head" and "sledge" are early forms of sculptural thinking in the work of Joseph Beuys.